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MEKONS

Mekons

Exquisite

    Hunkered down and unable to record together, in 2020 the MEKONS created a glorious digital chain letter of an album. Exquisite is a sprawling manifesto of connection and defance that deftly slides through fddle tunes, digi-dub, freside ballads and urgent rock & roll. And that’s just side A. The original recording plan was to have been the whole-band-in-a-room session in Valencia, Spain. When the pandemic rendered that impossible the process took a sharp swerve. The album credits describe it this way: "Exquisite was recorded in lockdown on mobile phones, broken cassette recorders, clay tablets & other ancient technologies in Aptos, Chicago, London, Los Angeles, New York & Devon. " This legendary group from Leeds, have written contemporary music history for the last 40 years as radical innovators of both frst generation punk and insurgent roots music, and Exquisite is another powerful vector of that legacy

    TRACK LISTING

    1. Se Reveló El Cadáver (intro) 
    2. Escalera 
    3. West Yorks Ballad 
    4. The Inhuman 
    5. Nobody 
    6. Buried Treasure 
    7. Exquisite 
    8. What Happened To Delilah 
    9. What I Believe At Night 
    10. Corn & Grain 
    11. Drink The New Wine

    Mekons

    The Edge Of The World

      Remastered for the 21st Century. First time available on vinyl since its original release in 1986. The success of Fear and Whiskey in 1985 saw the Mekons with a stable line-up and enough money to record a new album for the first time in years. The songs on Edge of the World were written and demoed in Leeds by Tom, Jon and Kevin early in 1986 and recorded at Offbeat Studios in Kirkstall with Three Johns live Soundman Tony Bonner who had recorded parts of Fear and Whiskey the year before.

      "If the continuing existence of their music doesn't place these anti-American country-rockers squarely among the undefeated for you, the continuing eloquence of their lyrics ought to--whether it's Sally Timms trying to talk to the drunk she's stuck with or Jon Langford downing cat food because he doesn't feel human tonight, they haven't given up on saying their piece" -Robert Christgau / Dean of American Rock Critics ca. 20th Century. 

      Mekons

      Deserted

        This legendary group from Leeds, have written contemporary music history for the last 40 years as radical innovators of both first generation punk and insurgent roots music. 'Deserted' marks the return of one of the planet’s most essential rock & roll bands. The new album was recorded in the desert environs of Joshua Tree, California and is drenched with widescreen, barbed-wire atmosphere and hard-earned (but ever amused) defiance.

        When punk exploded in London, fast and brash and full of fury, up in Leeds the Mekons came blinking into the light at a much slower pace. Singles like “Where Were You” and “Never Been in a Riot” (both from1978) fractured punk’s outlaw myth with the ordinariness of real life. During the next decade, as country singers donned cowboy hats and slid into the stadiums, the Mekons celebrated the music’s rough, raw beginnings and tender hearts with the Fear and Whiskey album (1985) and went on to demolish rock narratives with Mekons Rock’n’Roll (1989). For more than four decades they’ve been a constant contradiction, an ongoing art project of observation, anger and compassion, all neatly summed up in the movie Revenge of the Mekons, which has ironically brought an upsurge in their popularity around the US as new audiences discovers their shambling splendour. And now the caravan continues with Deserted, their first full studio album in eight years.

        And desert is an apt word. This time there’s an emphasis on texture and sounds, a sense of space that brings a new, widescreen feel to their music, opening up songs that surge like clarion calls, like the album’s opening track, “Lawrence of California.” The band arrived with no songs written, only a few ideas exchanged by email between Jon Langford and Tom Greenhalgh, the group’s other original member.

        Five days of brilliant chaos let their thoughts run free, from the almost-folk wonder of “How Many Stars” and the wide open space of “In The Desert,” to the oblique strangeness of “Harar 1883,” a song about French poet Arthur Rimbaud’s time in Ethiopia, inspired by photographs Greenhalgh has of the period.

        TRACK LISTING

        Lawrence Of California
        Harar 1883
        In The Sun
        The Galaxy Explodes
        How Many Stars?
        In The Desert
        Mirage
        Weimar Vending Machine
        Priest?
        Andromeda
        After The Rain

        The Mekons 77

        It Is Twice Blessed

          Formed in the late 1970s as an art collective, The Mekons are one of the longest-running and most prolific of the first-wave British punk rock bands. Through the years, the band's musical style has evolved, incorporating aspects of country music, folk music, alternative rock and even occasional experiments with dub. Following the release of new single "Still Waiting", and the success of Mekonville - a weekend-long music festival organised and curated by The Mekons themselves - the re-united 1977 line-up have continued to play live shows, and have now recorded their first album together since 1980.

          The Mekons

          Mekonville

            The Mekons celebrated their first 40 years at the Mekonville Festival in July 2017, with sets by both the current and original 1977 line-ups.

            This limited 12" has a brand new song "How Many Stars Are Out Tonight" and the 1977 version of the band performing "Still Waiting" (lyrically a follow up to "Where Were You")

            TRACK LISTING

            1.How Many Stars Are Out Tonight - (2017 Line Up)
            2.Still Waiting - (1977 Line-up)


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